In April 2012, the Green Bay (Wisconsin) City Council extensively revised its ordinance dealing with weeds and the maintenance of vegetation to recognize the importance of native plants and natural landscaping. It also adopted setback requirements and established an appeal process. See Section 8.11 of Section 1 of the Green Bay Municipal code.

The Ohio City of Cincinnati enacted a new weed control law thanks to a group of determined citizens.

Developing a Weed Ordinance

It is a municipality's obligation to promote and encourage the control of invasive non-native plant species in the landscape. To learn how to help the municipality develop a new weed law, read the article presented in the July 2005 issue of Plants out of Place, the newsletter of the Invasive Plants Association of Wisconsin, page 9, entitled "Developing Municipal Weed Laws" written by Donna VanBuecken.

Pride, Science, Law

Produced by Wild Ones member Joy Buslaff, view a slide show covering these three aspects of natural landscaping -- pride, science and law. YOU ARE PERMITTED TO DOWNLOAD THIS VIDEO USING ANY NUMBER OF MEDIA DOWNLOADERS OR TO BROADCAST IT TO AN AUDIENCE VIA WIFI.

For the most part, the tapestry of parks, private gardens and formal open spaces that make up the vegetated urban landscape are a disturbing reflection of an aesthetic preference and cultural tradition out of step with current environmental, ecological and societal realities.

Why? The landscapes are dependent on constant and expensive energy inputs to retain their cultivated forms. Their maintenance is responsible for considerable environmental degradation through the pollution it causes (lawn mower emissions, herbicide and pesticide run-off, etc.). And they perpetuate our dated cultural attitudes concerning nature in the city and the relationship between human society and the environment. In short, most urban greenspaces suffer many of the same environmental shortcomings that the advocates of schoolground naturalization use to justify their projects.

This is a strange fact. If we are trying to teach our youth to be good environmental stewards, should we not be teaching by example? Should not municipalities as the protectors and guardians of public and environmental health seek to apply the same successful programs to its own properties? Should not private homeowners reevaluate their own landscaping practices as a matter of public responsibility? Why should the benefits so clearly linked to naturalization be restricted almost exclusively to schoolgrounds?

"When Cities Grow Wild - Natural Landscaping from an Urban Planning Perspective" addresses these questions and the larger issues to which they are related. In light of the successes of the schoolground naturalization movement, it questions the value of the current urban landscape ethic, examines its associated environmental and economic problems, and makes the case for the adoption of naturalization, or natural landscaping as an alternative design approach that better reflects current ecological and fiscal realities.

You Don't Have to Fight City Hall

by Bret Rappaport

Realizing that municipalities have an obligation to promote and encourage native landscaping is the first step in getting what you want. Your job (our job) is to show local governments how and why native landscaping is good for everyone so they'll stop working against us and start working with us.

Forbidding the Real Weeds

by Peter Rice of the Division of Biological Sciences University of Montana - Missoula

A nuanced approach to getting rid of the weed ordinances is required to permit weed laws to respond to non-native invasives. Take a look at the cover article, Model Weed Law Provisions, in the Center for Invasive Plant Management’s November 2008 newsletter. Peter Rice is the Project Director for the Invaders Database System, a comprehensive database of exotic weed distribution records for five states in the northwestern U.S.

How One Person Can Help
in a Small Way to Change the Course
of a Non-Conservation-Minded World